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Ombudsman Services is seeing a trend of increasing smart meter complaints, its chief executive has told Utility Week.
Matthew Vickers, who is also chief ombudsman, revealed that the organisations received more than 69,500 total complaints in 2021, around 18% up from 2019. He said smart meter complaints in particular have been rising “both in number and proportion”.
Issues with connectivity have blighted the smart meter rollout from the beginning, with some devices being unable to properly communicate with a new supplier when a consumer switches.
According to the latest government figures, more than 4.7 million smart meters were in ‘traditional’ mode at the end of Q3 2021, meaning they had lost their smart functionality.
Ombudsman Services said complaints about smart meters have increased at a rate that exceeds the growth in the number of installed smart meters, surging by 60% between 2020 and 2021.
There were more than 2,300 complaints about smart meters in 2019. This increased to more than 3,400 in 2020 and to 5,500 in 2021.
| 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | |
| Meter | 6% | 6% | 7% |
| Smart Meters | 4% | 6% | 8% |
| Total complaints accepted | 58,916 | 57,320 | 69,572 |
Complaints about the devices not communicating properly made up the majority of smart meter complaints in 2021.
The top 5 subcategories for smart meter complaints are currently:
- Loss of smart meter communications
- Meter not recording accurately/faulty
- In home display problems
- Smart meter not sending meter readings
- Failed installation
Vickers said: “With a number of the suppliers I have spoken to, when I ask what is worrying them most beyond the immediate affordability issues, it’s smart meters. That’s probably because some of them are playing catch up, they are trying to install more.
“We are not particularly seeing lots of issues coming out of botched appointment visits like we saw 2-3 years ago. It’s much more now that the system doesn’t communicate. We pick up some things about the in-home displays (IHDs). You might ask is that because some people think the IHD is the smart meter and get confused about that?
“There’s something here running in the background which we shouldn’t miss. At the end of this, whenever we do get through this really difficult period, we are still left with the challenge of energy digitalisation and net zero.”
Vickers also commented on the impact of the energy crisis on Ombudsman Services, revealing that of the c.69,500 total complaints received in 2021, around 8,000 had to be effectively discontinued because suppliers had failed.
As such, the organisation has been exposed to significant amounts of bad debt.
He continued: “The impact on our work has been two-fold. One, how many cases do we have to discontinue? That’s a worry because then people’s trust in the system will fail, they will question whether they are protected because all we can say when a supplier fails is ‘sorry, they have gone bust’.
“The other impact is we can end up being exposed to bad debt. There are other cases in flight we have worked on and effectively don’t get paid for. You are talking somewhere between £500,000 and £750,000 of exposure to bad debt that we have off suppliers going bust.”
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